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Kiya in every way. Chief Wife is only a title, Mutnodjmet. Amunhotep could send me to the back of some harem if I fail to charm him.”
    “Our father would never let that happen,” I protested. “You will always have a room in the palace.”
    “Palace or harem,” she dismissed, turning back to the mirror, “what does it matter? If I don’t impress him, I will be a figurehead and nothing more. I will pass my days in my chamber and never know what it’s like to rule a kingdom.”
    It frightened me to hear Nefertiti speak like this. I preferred her wild confidence to the reality of what would happen if she failed to become the favorite. Then I saw something move behind us in the mirror and froze. A pair of women had entered our chamber. Nefertiti turned sharply and one of the women stepped forward. She was dressed in the court’s latest fashion, with beaded sandals and small golden earrings. When she smiled, two dimples appeared on her cheeks.
    “We have been instructed to take you to the baths,” she announced, handing us linen towels and soft bathing robes. She was older than Nefertiti, but not by many years. “I am Ipu.” Her black eyes searched us appraisingly, taking in my disheveled hair and Nefertiti’s slenderness. She indicated the woman next to her and smiled. “This is Merit.”
    Merit’s lips curved upward slightly, and I thought her face was haughtier looking than Ipu’s. Yet her bow was deep, and when she came up she flicked her bangled wrist toward the door, indicating the courtyard. “The baths are this way.”
    I thought of the cold copper tubs in Akhmim and my enthusiasm waned. Ipu, however, chattered brightly as we went.
    “We are to become your body servants,” she informed us. “Before you dress or leave your chamber, we will make certain everything is in place. Princess Kiya has her own ladies. Body servants as well as acolytes. The women of the court all follow her lead. However she paints her eyes, they paint their eyes. However she wears her hair, the women of Thebes follow. For now,” she added with a smile.
    A pair of guards ceremoniously pushed open the double doors to the bathhouse, and when the steam cleared from my vision I gasped. Vessels poured water into a long tiled pool that was surrounded by stone benches and sun-warmed stones. Thick plants, their tendrils escaping from vases to wind up the colonnades, grew toward the light.
    Nefertiti surveyed the columned chamber with approval. “Can you believe that Father knew all about this and chose to raise us in Akhmim?” She tossed aside her linen towel.
    We took seats on stone benches, and our new body servants instructed us to lie down.
    “Your shoulders are very tense, my lady.” Ipu pressed down to ease the tension in my back. “Old women have softer shoulders than you!” She laughed, and I was surprised at her familiarity. But as she massaged, I felt the tenseness in my shoulders come undone.
    The beads from Ipu’s wig clinked softly together, and I could smell the perfume from her linen sheath, the scent of lotus blossom. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again there was another woman in the pool. Then almost at once Merit was moving, wrapping my sister in her robe.
    I sat up. “Where—”
    “Shh.” Ipu pressed down on my back.
    I watched them leave, stunned. “Where are they going?”
    “Back to your chamber.”
    “But why?”
    “Because Kiya is here,” Ipu said.
    I looked across the pool at a woman tossing her beaded hair in the water. Her face was small and narrow, her nose slightly crooked, but there was something arresting about her face.
    Ipu clicked her tongue. “I have run out of lavender. Stay here, say
nothing
. I’ll be back.”
    As Ipu walked away, Kiya moved toward me. She wrapped linen around her waist. Immediately, I sat up and did the same.
    “So you’re the one they’re calling Cat Eyes,” she said. She sat across from me and stared. “I suppose this is your first time in the